Dovizioso: “Starting from the Front Should Help Us”

Andrea Dovizioso believes starting from the front row of the grid will provide him with an even greater advantage than normal at Silverstone tomorrow. The Ducati rider qualified second behind Ducati team-mate Jorge Lorenzo after a dramatic day which saw heavy delays following FP4 and Q1 due to a heavy crash involving Tito Rabat and torrential rain.

With the run towards turn one being one of the shortest of the year, plus the likelihood of that dash taking place in wet conditions, Dovizioso feels he is well placed to stay out of trouble in what looks set to be a dramatic race.

“It was very difficult conditions”, he explained. “I’m really happy about the result because it’s important to be on the first row, especially here because the start is very short, so starting from the front should help us. It was strange conditions and to push in just two corners of the track on the wet tyres was very difficult, especially on the front.”

“We did a good lap time and we did a good strategy because we didn’t take a lot of risks. I have good confidence on the track. Maverick is a few tenths faster than us but let’s see what the weather does tomorrow and let’s see if we have any grip because if it’s wet, the track will be on the limit.”

With heavy rain forecast throughout the afternoon, tomorrow’s race has been brought forward to 11:30am local time in an attempt to dodge the worst weather conditions. Like most riders, Dovizioso has doubts over whether a race could go ahead in heavy rain and has questioned the resurfacing work that has taken place at Silverstone.

“We have to see if the rain is constant and if it’s worse than today because today, it didn’t rain for long but it was enough to cause a problem. I think sometimes it’s happened at other circuits that when you resurface the track, sometimes you create more problems than before. I don’t want to speak because I don’t know all the details but for sure, it was possible to do this in a better way. I think when you spend a lot of money, it’s better to spend a bit more and not have these problems. If you’ve completely resurfaced the track and it’s more bumpy than before, something’s happened.”